The Judiciary in the Predicament of the Haft Tappeh Case

Dozens of political and civil activists have condemned the sentences of the accused in the Haft Tappeh case and challenged Ibrahim Raisi. The Iranian Writers Association points to the aversion of the perpetrators and instigators of such sentences to women, freedom of expression, and the labor movement. 

The Labor Minister in a letter to the Head of the Judiciary called the heavy sentences against Haft Tappeh sugar cane workers shocking and described protest as the right of workers. Mohammad Shariatmadari stated in this letter that it was decided in the cabinet meeting that a committee composed of the Justice Minister, the Legal Deputy of the President, and himself would follow up on the issue.

The judicial system has issued sentences exceeding one century of imprisonment for seven accused in the Haft Tappeh case. Two of these are Haft Tappeh workers, and the remaining five—three of whom are young women—are labor rights defenders and reporters for the online publication “Gam.”

The Labor Minister in his letter to Ibrahim Raisi, referring to “the excessive pressures of Iran’s ill-wishers and the hegemonic system,” called for a fair and merciful approach to labor issues and protests to be on the agenda of all stakeholders.

At the same time, a group of reformist political activists, referring to the absence of fair trial in issuing the harshest punishments for labor, student, civil, and media activists, wrote in a statement: “No details of these cases, the issued indictments, evidence and grounds of accusations, and the defendants’ defenses have been published. It is unclear to what extent the charges have been substantiated and whether the defendants and their lawyers had sufficient opportunity to defend themselves or not.”

The statement notes that recent sentences have wounded public opinion, and the judiciary should provide conditions for review and reconsideration “so that while restoring the overlooked rights of these citizens, public conscience will judge the fairness of the judicial process.”

This statement bears the signatures of a number of former and current ministers and representatives, lawyers, sociologists, journalists, and political activists. Faezeh Hashemi, Abbas Abdi, Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, Mostafa Tajzadeh, Ehsan Shariati, Kian Samimi, Shahindokht Molaverdi, Parvaneh Salahshouri, Fatemeh Saeidi, Fatemeh Zolqadr, Zahra Sedragholi Nouri, Farida Gheirat, Habibollah Peiman, and Mohsen Safaei Farahani are among the signatories.

“Multi-Faction Protest Letter”

Another group of “principalist, reformist, and justice-seeking activists” in a letter to Ibrahim Raisi called the heavy sentences of the accused in the Haft Tappeh case astonishing and said: “This is while the respected organization has thus far failed to materialize a case regarding the sale of national assets that over the past decade have been gifted to just anyone under the name of ‘privatization,’ and has not issued sentences with such intensity and severity.”

Part of the letter states: “It seems that some sections of the apparatus under your esteemed direction are trying through these sentences, in complete coordination with those implementing the destructive transfers of recent years, to draw a line for protesters against the sale of Hepco Arak, Aral Kish Agriculture, Tabriz Machine-Building, Al-Mahdi Aluminum, and other factories and industrial complexes in the country.”

Analytical Statement of the Writers Association

Meanwhile, the Iranian Writers Association, condemning the issued sentences, attributed the issue to the “aversion of the perpetrators and instigators” of these sentences to “women, the labor movement, and freedom of expression.”

In the association’s statement, it is noted that three of the seven accused in the Haft Tappeh case are women and 55 years out of 106 years of prison sentence are directed at them: “Although intensifying repression and creating fear in the hearts of protesting people is the motivation for issuing such sentences, the sentences are also fed by sources, one of which is gender oppression and hatred of women. Another source is class-based… The Haft Tappeh case is a type of narrative of class-based labor protest, and for the guardians of the existing order, there is nothing more grave and unbearable than such protests taking on a class dimension.”

The Writers Association says that five of the accused have no crime other than covering the news of workers’ protests: “Freedom of expression undermines gender oppression and class oppression and renders ineffective one of the important tools of its implementation, namely ignorance and superstition, and it is no wonder that the rulers strongly abhor it.”

In the conclusion of the Iranian Writers Association’s statement, it is noted that although most of the perpetrators and instigators of such sentences have come from the 1980s and undoubtedly remember the “golden” results of repression from that period, they should not forget that if they are the same, the world has changed: “By issuing severe and terrible sentences, pressures and suffering will certainly be imposed on activists in various fields and their families, and obstacles will be created to people’s protests in Iran; but they cannot impose silence and peace upon them.”

Source: DW